Innocent III (born in Anagni one year
after Genghis Khan), was an all powerful Pope for 18 years at a time of
weak European monarchies (Link
to Chronology Entry).
Amongst other things he gave his seal of approval to the new mendicant
friar orders of the
Franciscans and Dominicans, and was instrumental in the launch of the
4th Crusade
(which got diverted and destroyed Constantinople) and the (Albigensian) Crusade
against the Cathars. He also banned the hitherto thriving trade in relics.

Innocent III also did the 4th Lateran Council (12th Ecumenical
Council) in 1215 (the same year that
King John of England got Magna Cartered) . Those present included Patriarchs of
Constantinople and Jerusalem, 71 archbishops, 412 bishops, and 800
abbots (guess who was powerful in 1215!) the Primate of the Maronites, and St. Dominic
(St Francis obviously had better things to do).
The Council issued an
enlarged creed against the Cathar Albigensians (Firmiter Credimus), condemned the
Trinitarian errors of Abbot Joachim, and published 70 important
reformatory decrees. Amongst these was a mandatory code of dress /
badges for Jews and Muslims (to ensure that there was no "damnable
mixing") - a rule which the Spanish refused to
implement despite direct orders from successive Popes.
This, the most important
council of the Middle Ages, marked the high
tide of church and papal power.

Earlier, in England, there had been a
practice run for the Henry VIII epic 300 years later, when
King John
refused to accept Innocent III's appointee
Stephen Langton (1050 - 1128
(78)) as Archbishop
of Canterbury. Langton waited patiently in the
Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny
in the centre of Chablis country in Burgundy, whilst John seized all the possessions of the archbishoprics
of Canterbury and York, and in 1208 Innocent retaliated by imposing an
interdict. This meant that priests were ordered to go on strike -
they were not allowed (officially anyway) to conduct any church services, hear confessions or administer
any sacraments including death rites (imagine what impact that had on a medieval society). A year later Innocent stepped up the pressure further
and excommunicated John, one of whose responses was to turn on the
English Cistercian monasteries with a vengeance and impose crippling levies. It took
four years to resolve the standoff, after which the priests went back to
work and Langton was allowed back in to England - but some
Cistercian monasteries
never recovered.

Archbishop Langton soon became one of the
leaders of the
baronial group (including the Head of the Knights
Templar in England) which forced the King to sign Magna Carta in 1215
- John must have known he was right in the first place!
Undeterred by previous experiences, the King immediately appealed to his
old mate the Pope to annul the agreement as it had been signed
under duress, and Innocent obliged - absolute rulers share the common
value of the survival of the species. In an ironic reversal of
fortune for the Langton family, John also persuaded Innocent to overrule
the appointment of Stephen's brother Simon Langton to the Archbishopric
of York in favour of Walter de Gray.

Ten year's later, in 1225,
John's 18 year old son, King Henry III, was persuaded by Archbishop (of
Canterbury) Stephen Langton to
reissue a slightly modified Magna Carta, which became the one embedded
in English law.

Innocent III died of the
fever in Perugia in 1216 aged 55. He was buried in the Perugia
Duomo, but in 1892 his remains were re-interred in this tomb in the
Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome. The tomb is over the
entrance to what is now the postcard and momento shop (to the right of the ciborium
above), and sadly not many people register who they are walking under as
they go in to purchase their memorabilia.

* This story gives a
fascinating insight into real-politik in the Middle Ages ...... as Chris
Lowney writes in his excellent book
"A Vanished World", " (King)
Fernando's motives for refusing to adorn the Jews with humiliating
badges were plainly self serving. No lofty human rights rhetoric
elevates his correspondence with Papal authorities, nor does he protest
that stigmatized dress would fundamentally demean the Jews. The
monarch's brand of religious tolerance features no paean to cultural
diversity and issues no idyllic appeal for interfaith dialogue.
Indeed, one senses that he might willingly enough have subjected Jews to
the humiliation had he been certain of preserving their tax revenues and
commercial savvy."